https://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Outdoors-Fifty-cold-rainy-miles-were-well-worth-12941067.php
Outdoors: 50 cold, rainy miles were well worth it
Finishing a 50-miler atop the Shawnagunks an ultra challenge
Updated 3:39 pm, Thursday, May 24, 2018
See if you can go 50 miles in a day.
More than 100 years ago, it was the challenge President Teddy Roosevelt made to the Marines. Nearly 50 years later, President John F. Kennedy, worried Americans were becoming too sedentary, offered his own 50-mile challenge.
Earlier this spring, my wife, Gillian accidentally presented me with a 50-mile challenge when she proposed I do the "Rock the Ridge" in the Shawangunks of the Lower Hudson Valley.
"Look," I said, "If there's somebody else, you can just tell me. You don't have to get me to kill myself in the 'Gunks."
It turns out, Gillian meant I should do Rock the Ridge as a relay, but it was too late. Two months ago, I didn't know there were local ultra-marathons -- races over the traditional 26.2 miles. Now I couldn't stop thinking about it.
In that free brain space that rational people use to plan their 401K savings, or remember when garbage day is, I had the question rattling around: Could I answer Teddy's, JFK's and Gillian's challenge?
The idea of the race created an extra buzz to my days. Trying something I wasn't sure I was capable of provided electricity to everyday life.
Just after dawn, on a cold, gray late May day, over 200 other runners and walkers took off from the Mohonk Preserve's Testimonial Gateway Tower just outside New Paltz.
The course quickly gains 1,000 vertical feet in the first few miles and this separated the true runners, the walkers and the half-run/half-walk group that I was in. My plan was to walk up the hills and run down them.
The rain was easy to ignore at first because, as most runners know, 50 degrees and a light rain is kind of pleasant when you're working hard.
I climbed Guyot Hill and then enjoyed a long sweeping descent to the first major aid station at mile 10. The rain came hard and the temperature dropped as we gained elevation. The volunteers were concerned that space blankets, meant to be used at the aid station, were being taken back on the course by competitors.
Fifteen miles in, we climbed Sky Top, maybe the most recognizable feature of the 'Gunks. Even lifelong New Yorkers assume I'm talking about a bluegrass band when I mention the Shawangunks, but the craggy beauty of the place was only slightly dampened by the cold and rain. I admired it for a second, before savoring a long, magical descent towards Trapps Bridge.
A woman with hollow, hopeless eyes sat near mile 20. Other runners and volunteers tried to encourage her until a Mohonk Preserve Ranger appeared to load her into his warm, waiting track. She would not be the last we'd see of hypothermia.
I had ample energy in the early miles to keep myself warm, but my thin running clothes were not enough. The next five miles were cold, soaked and miserable.
The saintly volunteer who greeted me at the mile 25 aid station put her arm around my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes for signs of hypothermia. She likely saw some.
So much of my day was luck. I had a dry shirt, Gore-Tex jacket, hat and gloves in my "drop bag" which race organizer shuttled to the aid station. I wouldn't have made it without them. Even with them, my hands were frozen claws. Another aid station saint transferred my race bib to my new clothes for me and gave me warm chili. The chili spilled over the sides of the bowl from my shivering.
The aid station was a road side string of tents. As a newbie to ultra-marathons, it was a surreal mix of noise, confusion, irritation, pain, kindness and joy. I watched as Mohonk Preserve Rangers brought two more hypothermic runners into the aid station from different directions. There's no way they can keep doing this, I thought to myself. It's too cold, too wet and there are too many people.
A third aid station saint slowly, deliberately asked if I was OK before letting me go back to the course. The next miles were cold and wet but remarkably beautiful though Lake Minnewaska State Park.
I felt oddly light when I ran back into the aid station in my 37th mile to find the chaos was gone. It was only volunteers and me.
I didn't know it, but I'd gotten lucky again. Because of the unusually cold, wet day, the race organizers had invoked an early cut-off and I was the last person to beat the cut-off. Nearly 100 other races had been taken off the course due to the weather.
I felt like the last man on earth over those final 13 miles. My IT band hated all those downhill miles and complained loudly when I ran, so I mostly walked.
The light faded and the rain stopped. I'd resigned myself to a walking finish when a light appeared behind me. The only other person on the course ran by me and I cheered her on.
"You can break fifteen hours if you hurry," were going to be my last words to her. Then she said, "You can too," and I was running with her with new strength.
Everyone at the finish line knew what we were trying to do and how hard it was to do it. There were cowbells and cheering and we finished with a few minutes to spare. My new friend gave me a big hug. I finished in last place but it couldn't have mattered less. I finished, the best finish of any race I've done.
